CCAT2: A new molecular marker in the diagnosis and treatment of Breast Cancer

CCAT2: A new molecular marker in the diagnosis and treatment of Breast Cancer
Farshid Ardabili,^1,* Sirvan Khosravi,² Faranak Aghajani,³ Farshid Ardabili,⁴
1. Department of Laboratory Sciences, Aligudarz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aligudarz, Iran
2. Department of Laboratory Sciences, Chalus Branch, Islamic Azad University, Chalus, Iran
3. Department of Nutrition Sciences, Marand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marand, Iran
4. Orumiyeh military Hospital, Health Administration of Army (NEZAJA), Tehran, Iran
Introduction: Long non-coding RNAs (Lnc-RNA); are a heterogeneous group of RNAs with a length of 200 to 100,000 nucleotides Which are transcribed by eukaryotic RNA polymerases II & III at any point in the genome. These RNAs play an important role in detecting cellular processes that cause cancer phenotypes, such as proliferation, invasion, and survival. Changes in their expression, in addition to being a secondary sign of cancer, can also be directly involved in the onset and progression of cancer. LncRNA acts as a biomarker to monitor tumor prognosis as well as regulating gene expression to regulate the growth and progression of many cells, especially malignant tumors. Among the types of lnc-RNAs, we can mention the CCAT2 gene, which is found in high levels in cancer cells and tissues. Which is evaluated as an important molecular marker in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. CCAT2 is probably a proliferative marker, meaning that whenever cell growth is high, the expression of this gene increases, and when its expression is inhibited, it reduces cell proliferation and differentiates progenitor and cancer cells. This gene is involved in the progression of the tumor from the lower stages to the higher stages of the malignant form, so it is possible that by inhibiting the expression of this gene through molecular methods such as RNAi, the progression of these tumors to higher stages of malignancy and metastasis can be prevented
Methods: In this review study, articles related to the CCAT2 molecular marker, using keywords CCAT2, lncRNA, Breast Cancer and long noncoding RNAs, from 2010 to 2020 in PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Springer Link and SID databases are searched and checked.
Results: Overexpression of CCAT2 significantly causes proliferation and attack of malignant tumors and is associated with tumor size, clinical stage, and TNM classification, indicating that CCAT2 is a significant biomarker for monitoring tumor progression. CCAT2 plays a key role in biological processes of tumor progression through various pathways. The results obtained from the review of articles in this field showed that the expression of CCAT2 gene in breast tumor samples increased significantly compared to marginal non-tumor samples. CCAT2 can be used as a new molecular marker to predict metastasis and prognosis in various human cancers, especially breast cancer.
Conclusion: According to our studies, the use of CCAT2 gene as a diagnostic marker in separating and identifying breast tumor tissues from non-tumor types is appropriate; Because CCAT2 gene expression also increases as the tumor progresses to higher stages. Therefore, by inhibiting the expression of this gene through molecular methods such as RNAi, the progression of these tumors to higher stages of malignancy and metastasis can be prevented. Therefore, the study of the expression of this gene can be used along with other conventional laboratory diagnostic methods.
Keywords: CCAT2, lncRNA, Breast Cancer, Long non-coding RNAs (Lnc-RNA)